Secret criminal chat world of 'online underground'

Updated
March 08, 2013 19:20:00

Fraudsters, hackers and other cyber criminals are taking to synchronous online messaging systems to communicate and even educate one another while evading police detection, according to an academic from the University of Wollongong.

MARK COLVIN: Law enforcement officials trying to crack cyber crime are increasingly focussing on what's known as the Deepnet, or the hidden web. That's the virtually untraceable level of the internet where many criminals communicate with each other.

An Australian academic says fraudsters, hackers and child pornographers don't just transact business on the Deepnet, they also use it as a sort of college of crime.

But there's an upside to the secrecy, as human rights organisations adopt similar approaches to expose abuses.

Rebecca Brice reports.

REBECCA BRICE: Dan DeFelippi's former life of crime sounds like the plot to a movie.

DAN DEFELIPPI: I could print my own fraudulent credit cards. I would encode them with the stolen information that was on the magnetic strips and then I could go and use those card in the stores to purchase anything, just like you would go.

REBECCA BRICE: When police caught up with the Texan fraudster in 2005 they gave him an ultimatum: tell all or go to jail.

He's since been dishing out information on what he calls the online underground.

DAN DEFELIPPI: We had discussion forums and chat rooms where we would go to buy and sell information or goods, and also trade information.

I would help other people learn how to do this stuff. So at some points I actually created some tutorials on how to card and store, as it's called, carding. I made some other tutorials as well along those lines: how to print the cards, how to use them, and the state of mind you needed to have in order to get away with it.

REBECCA BRICE: That online chatter is getting harder to police, according to Katina Michael, an associate professor from the University of Wollongong's School of Information Systems and Technology.

KATINA MICHAEL: Well since the mid 1990s, when the internet came about, criminals have sought new ways to communicate online. And they've done this using traditional things like newsgroups.

Some of the more way that they're getting to become undetected, however, is using things like internet relay chat. And internet relay chat allows for synchronous communications. That's communication which is not stored and you've got to be online to read and receive and send messages at any one point in time. So they're becoming increasingly elusive.

REBECCA BRICE: They use these methods, I presume, to avoid police?

KATINA MICHAEL: Yes they do. And because there's so much data out there, and because the communications are synchronous, it's very hard for police to actually detect these kinds of communications.

And the other thing is, they're actually not committing a particular crime sometimes by discussing certain elements of activities. They may not be saying that they've actually done it, but they are sharing details about, for example, ATM (automatic teller machine) machines or sharing information about skimming devices or technology.

REBECCA BRICE: Child pornographers use the same methods, she says.

Commander Glen McEwen is with the Australian Federal Police.

GLEN MCEWAN: When you are sort of focusing on technology, of course there's always vulnerabilities that people will exploit. And the evolution of technology always throws out those challenges for law enforcement to keep pace with the operating environment.

But we are very closely aligned with industry, other government departments, and that allows the AFP to at least keep pace with the environment we're operating in.

REBECCA BRICE: New cyber investigators form part of the Government's $64 million anti-gang taskforce announced this week. The AFP is yet to say how they will be used.

Synchronous messaging is also being adopted by those reporting crimes.

Katina Michael.

KATINA MICHAEL: There are lots of human rights splinter organisations trying to use the same techniques to report on crimes against humanity.

REBECCA BRICE: And this is if they're going undercover to try to track human rights abuses, is that your understanding of how it's used?

KATINA MICHAEL: That's right. So they would necessarily go into an area of which they would wish to be undetected, perhaps do some first person interviewing, perhaps capture some video evidence or other proceeds and then go back and report on these in the first world.

MARK COLVIN: Associate professor Katina Michael from the University of Wollongong with Rebecca Brice.